In an era where chemical, biological or nuclear attacks at one or more locations either globally or within a country are possible, it is desirable to have a surveillance system capable of locating and identifying the type of attack so that a rapid response can be initiated. Such attacks can occur both as a result of enemy or terrorist activity or as a result of a chemical, biological or nuclear accident in a domestic facility. In all such cases, a prompt response with medical treatment will tend to minimize injury and loss of life.
Obviously, sensors exist which will detect various chemical and biological agents as well as nuclear radiation, but effective use of such sensors in a global or even a national surveillance system would require hundreds of thousands of sensors and would be impractical. Also, sensors have been subject to agents devised by microbiologists to thwart the effective operations of the sensors.
Sensors have been effectively used to detect hazardous airborne agent attacks on very limited areas, such as buildings or compounds, but a problem still remains as to how an attack occurring in a large area, such as a city, state, country or globally can effectively and rapidly be identified. To this point, as illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,539 to Lauterbach et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,952 to Stutman et al., hazardous material and medical alerts have originated from small, specific locations or from specific patients.